The New York mom who was slashed in the face as she rode a subway train with her toddler in midtown on Sunday morning has been released from the hospital, and the woman who allegedly slashed her has been arrested dozens of times before.
Anna Martinez, 31, needed about 30 stitches to close up the wound on her face following the slashing. She has nerve damage, but is expected to be okay.
Martinez was about to get off a 5 train at Grand Central on Sunday morning when she was slashed by a woman with a knife, police said.
Police said they believe an argument sparked the attack, but Martinez said she believes she was followed from 125th Street in Harlem. She says she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, except that the woman wasn't wearing any pants.
“No words were exchanged,” Martinez said. “She never said anything to me, I never said anything to her. Never seen her before.”
Martinez says all she could think about during the attack was her son: “What if she woulda did that to my son and not me.”
Police arrested 53-year-old Jacqueline Sanjurjo on Sunday. On her way to face a judge on assault, weapons and child endangerment charges, Sanjurjo told reporters she knew nothing about the crime.
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Police say Sanjurjo has been arrested more than 60 times before, including for assault, criminal possession of a controlled substance, prostitution, larceny and criminal trespassing.
“She needs to be in jail — I don't need nobody else going through this,” Martinez said.
Robert Meijas, Sanjurjo’s ex-boyfriend of 17 years, spoke exclusively with News 4. He says the two of them lost a son to suicide — a death from which Sanjurjo never recovered.
“You lost everything else, so you really don’t give a hoot what else you lose,” Meijas said. “You lost all your kids, you lost one kid to suicide.”
Meijas says Sanjurjo had been living in a homeless shelter recently and has a history of mental health issues. He says he feels sorry for both Martinez and Sanjurjo.
“It’s unfortunate because they’re both victims,” he said.
